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A study shows that preschool and school-aged kids with “authoritarian” (demanding but not responsive) parents were between 35 and 41 per cent more likely to be obese than those with “authoritative” (demanding but responsive to their children) parents. (dreamstime)

Authoritative: Parents who are demanding but responsive to their children.

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Permissive: Parents who are responsive but not demanding.

Negligent: Parents who are neither responsive nor demanding.

The results showed that, for the population as a whole, preschool and school-aged kids with “authoritarian” parents were between 35 and 41 per cent more likely to be obese than those with “authoritative” parents.

“Kids are kind of born with this innate ability to self-monitor their eating, though there are always extremes like Halloween,” said Lisa Kakinami.

She is the study’s lead author and an assistant professor in Concordia’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics in collaboration with the PERFORM (that stands for prevention, evaluation, rehabilitation and “form”ation) Centre.

But an “authoritarian” parenting style can override that instinctive self-monitoring, she said.

“If you tell your child to always finish what’s on their plate, you’re teaching them to override their own signals of feeling full.”

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Geoff Ball, an associate professor in the University of Alberta’s department of pediatrics, stressed that a weakness of the study is its reliance on parental-reporting. He explained parents might not be the best gauge of their children’s weight and height as compared to outside, unbiased measurements.

“One of the take-home messages is the parenting style that’s less associated with obesity is one referred to as ‘authoritative,’ ” Ball said. “Parents are responsive to their children’s hunger and their cues, not ignoring them.”

That means providing the food, and letting kids decide when — and how much — to eat, he said.

“We’ve all seen that situation where kids can’t leave the dinner table until they finish their broccoli, and it’s a stalemate. That’s not a healthy way for food to be enjoyed.”

That doesn’t mean parents should bow to their children’s whims, of course, since that might involve some less-than-healthy choices. “But encourage them to start with healthy items, so if they get full, they’ve at least eaten their vegetables,” Kakinami said.

Among children living in poverty — as in, those living below the Statistics Canada low-income cut-offs — the risk of being obese was 20 per cent greater compared with the risk for kids not living in poverty, regardless of the parenting style used.

But for kids in higher-income families, certain parenting styles made a clear impact on their obesity risk. “Authoritarian” parenting was associated with a 44 per cent higher risk, while “negligent” parenting was associated with a 26 per cent increase.

Dr. Katherine Morrison, associate professor in the department of pediatrics at McMaster University, said this research is an important piece of the discussion about preventing obesity for both parents and clinicians.

“When we’re treating families that have these challenges, it’s also important for us to think about how families parent,” she said.

The self-reporting aspect is another weakness, Morrison said, since parents were gauging their own parenting styles.

While Kakinami acknowledged the study’s limitations, including that parenting styles can change over time, she said it presents a “stepping stone” for further research into how parents contribute to their children’s obesity risk.

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